The Oxford Handbook of the British Sermon 1689–1901, edited by Keith A. Francis and William Gibson, aims to demonstrate the interdisciplinary strength of sermon studies. This discrete field has occurred over the past two decades, the work of historians, literary and linguistic scholars, theologians, and rhetoricians. Continuing the trend of studies in the field, the editors see this volume as being influenced by and contributing to a transformation of the landscape of sermon studies. Sermon studies, then, is an attempt to respond to the significance of religion in Britain during the period of 1689–1901, a “golden age” of sermons.

The focus of the handbook's thirty-seven chapters is scholarly and research-oriented, written primarily for experts and students of religious, political and social life in the period. Focusing on the sermon rather than preaching provides a way of discerning trends represented by preachers and their aims as principle actors in the public sphere. Sermons are approached as “fossils,” or works of paleontology; the study of artifacts whose real substance is gone and can only be partially recovered by unearthing the material remains that surround them, particularly publishing and architecture. The organizing principle of the essays guides their arrangement which follows the judgment of the editors, of which William Gibson provides a clear summary in the first chapter, “The British Sermon 1689–1901: Quantities, Performance, and Culture.” The dates, 1689–1901, identify a time period bounded by the Glorious Revolution and the death of Queen Victoria, following the era of the “baroque” sermon and puritan preaching and prior to a period of decline. Popularity of sermons was at an all-time high, characterized by diversification in content and purpose even as preaching became more specialized. An additional factor is the quantity of extant sermons; approximately 80,000 of an estimated 250 million sermonic events. The introductory essays thus serve as an invitation for scholars of modern British history to include sermon studies in their work.

Yet if a single cultural experience can be said to have been shared by all classes and conditions of people in Britain and throughout its empire is that of sitting below a pulpit hearing a sermon. The conversation and debates, other than in print, that they have engendered have been lost like most such experiences. In comparison with politics, economics, warfare, crime, and perhaps even sex, sermons probably occupied more of the attention of people (25–26).

The chapters can be read as opening a number of possible paths into sermon studies. Following the editors’ essays, parts II and III comprise twenty-one of the book's thirty-seven chapters, “Communities, Culture and Communication” and “Occasional Sermons,” surveying the landscape of the sermon and its use. Part II treats parish preaching: the village sermon, Victorian era sermons, sermons as public lecture, Quaker sermons, evangelical sermons, sermons in British Catholicism, sermons in Scotland and Wales, and sermons for the UK annual Three Choirs Festival. This is popular or non-elite preaching, what most people heard on a regular basis at established times and spaces. According to the editors, these chapters show preaching as the “stem cell” of religious performance. This refers to the diverse ways preachers adapted their sermons to the differing communal identities, beliefs, and languages of their hearers. A common topic, however, was the Christian life and Christian doctrine. This had added significance with the publication of sermons which allowed them to be preached in devotional, educational, and political settings, creating a “timeless” quality which extended their influence.

Part III, “The Occasional Sermon,” considers sermons at Court and Parliament, in defense of Georgian England, on national victories and salvation, in the time of American and French revolutions, on clergy visitations and charges, consecrations sermons, protestant funeral sermons, and the Victorian funeral sermon. These influential forms of specialized sermons were given by “elites” in the church, state, or society. This section complements the discussion of popular sermons, relating the “high and low” in ways that point to the role of preaching in the ordinary and exceptional events of life. Moreover, these two serve as an indicator of the intensely religious character of British society in this time period.

Although the remaining four parts are shorter in length; the topics may be among the most interesting to scholars. Part IV considers the influence of sermons on Britain's intellectual and social life, displaying the controversial nature of preaching, both in its polemical and apologetic aims. For example, chapters discuss sermons in favor of and in response to the Enlightenment, and on the conflict of natural theology and science. This section offers numerous possibilities for research into the role of sermons as a site of intellectual debate, innovation, and justification. Part V focuses on the topic of empire, the value of preaching both proceeding and following colonization. A fascinating aspect of Britain's colonial expansion is that the power of the sermon was learned and used by preachers representing churches from among those who were colonized. Part VI has three chapters that touch on the relationship of sermons to literature. Although sales of fiction increased while sales of sermons declined, modern British literature is indebted to the sermon. The two literary forms are complementary; preachers and writers paid close attention to each other's works. The seventh and concluding section provides a clarifying summary of major issues in Sermon Studies and charts possible future directions for the field.

The Oxford Handbook of the British Sermon 1689–1901 offers a clearly and critically written demonstration of the field of sermon studies. Its essays do not presume to be comprehensive in their treatment of respective topics or themes. Taken as a whole, however, this handbook is a compelling invitation to the study of sermons in Britain's “long eighteenth century.”